Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. II (the Corpus Hermeticum) — G. R. S. Mead (1906)
The text is shown on its own: no facing layer is held for this issue.
2 A word has here dropped out in the text, which I have supplied by apybv (inactive), and not by the usual conjecture " apart from God."
3 Of. P. S. A., iii. 1 : " Now lend to me the whole of thee."
4 Sc. work, doing, making, or creating.
14. And if them wouldst in practice 1 understand [this work], behold what taketh place with thee desiring to beget. Yet this is not like unto that, for He doth not enjoy.
For that indeed He hath no other one to share in what He works, for working by Himself, He ever is at work, Himself being what He doth.2 For did He separate Himself from it,3 all things would [then] collapse, and all must die, Life ceasing.
But if all things are lives, and also Life is one ; then, one is God. And, furthermore, if all are lives, both those in Heaven and those on Earth, and One Life in them all is made to be by God, and God is it 4 — then, all are made by God.
Life is the making-one of Mind and Soul ; accordingly Death is not the destruction of those that are at-oned,5 but the dissolving of their union.
15. ^Eon, moreover, is God's image; Cosmos [is] ^Eon's ; the Sun, of Cosmos ; and Man, [the image] of the Sun.
The people call change death, because the body is dissolved, and life, when it's dissolved, withdraws to the unmanifest. But in this
, in deed, in work. 2 Or makes.
3 Sc. His work, or creation. 4 Viz., this Life.
6 That is, Mind and Soul, sc. the Logos and World-Soul, or ego and animal soul.
sermon (logos), Hermes, my beloved, as thou dost hear, I say the Cosmos also suffers change, —for that a part of it each day is made to be in the unmanifest, — yet it is ne'er dissolved.
These are the passions of the Cosmos — revolvings and concealments ; revolving is conversion and concealment renovation.
16. The Cosmos is all-formed, — not having forms external to itself, but changing them itself within itself. Since, then, Cosmos is made to be all-formed, what may its maker be ? For that, on the one hand, He should not be void of all form ; and, on the other hand, if He's all-formed, He will be like the Cosmos. Whereas, again, has He a single form, He will thereby be less than Cosmos.
What, then, say we He is? — that we may not bring round our sermon (logos) into doubt ; for naught that mind conceives of God is doubtful.
He, then, hath one idea,1 which is His own alone, which doth not fall beneath the sight, being bodiless, and [yet] by means of bodies manifesteth all [ideas].2 And marvel not that there's a bodiless idea.
17. For it is like the form of reason (logos)3
1 The root of form ; used also loosely in Greek to denote form.
2 Or forms. 3 Or idea of the sermon.
THRICE -GREATEST HERMES
and mountain- tops in pictures.1 For they appear to stand out strongly from the rest, but really are quite smooth and flat.
And now consider what is said more boldly, but more truly !
Just as man cannot live apart from Life, so neither can God live without [His] doing good.2 For this is as it were the life and motion as it were of God — to move all things and make them live.
18. Now some of the things said 3 should bear a sense peculiar to themselves. So understand, for instance, what I'm going to say.
All are in God, [but] not as lying in a place.
For place is both a body and immovable, and
things that lie do not have motion.
Now things lie one way in the bodiless, another way in being made manifest.
Think, [then,] of Him who doth contain them all ; and think, that than the bodiless naught is more comprehensive, or swifter, or more potent, but it is the most comprehensive, the swiftest, and most potent of them all.
19. And, thus, think from thyself, and bid thy soul go unto any land ; and there more quickly than thy bidding will it be. And bid it journey oceanwards ; and there, again, immediately 'twill be, not as if passing on from place to place, but as if being there.
1 Kal fr rats 7pa0cu* aKpefyeicu. All the translators talk of "margins" in MSS., and make entire nonsense of the passage. I can find absolutely no authority for translating a.Kpd>ptiat margins.
2 Or making the Good ; that is,
3 Or points of the sermon.